


This Side of Paradise

by juurensha



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Episode: s04e11 Gem Harvest, F/F, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Happy Farm Life, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 18:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15394539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juurensha/pseuds/juurensha
Summary: She keeps watching the fields of corn, the vines of the tomatoes, the budding strawberries, wondering if they would suddenly spring forth with something as terrible as Malachite, but all they did was peacefully continue to grow.





	This Side of Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted a pre Raising the Barn scene of Lapis and Peridot deciding to create the farm, so I did.

“I have a proposition,” Peridot said, standing at attention and rocking back and forth on her feet.

“Alright,” Lapis said patiently.

Peridot cleared her throat and continued, “As you know, we can’t start up a kindergarten because that would make the Crystal Gems very angry.”

“True,” Lapis agreed.

(More importantly, it would make Steven mad, but the point held.)

“So I was thinking, what if we tried growing Earth vegetables?”

Lapis scrunched up her face, “You mean like grass? Don’t we have grass everywhere?”

Peridot shook her head, “No, Steven showed me some pictures. He said grass isn’t a vegetable. Vegetables are things humans plant and grow in fields. And sometimes they eat them.”

“Grass is in a field, and I’m pretty sure something eats grass,” Lapis argued, “Like—what’s that thing called? With four legs and horns and spots?”

“Oh, I know this one!” Peridot said, jumping up and down excitedly, “It’s a—caw! Or cow? Something like that. But we don’t have any, and besides grass doesn’t do anything.”

“It is very empty,” Lapis agreed.

(She hadn’t thought she would have ever wished for anything other than solitude after so long trapped at the bottom of the ocean with Jasper, but after all these months in the barn, even with Peridot’s constant chatter, it sometimes feels empty.

Obviously nothing was as bad as that mirror, and she’s grown to enjoy Peridot’s company, but a long time ago, long enough that it almost feels like a dream to her, she had friends and compatriots at court.

It would be nice to have that again.)

Peridot grinned, “What if we combined my amazing kindergartener skills and your hydrokinesis to experiment on vegetables?”

Lapis slowly nodded, “How many should we—plant? Is that the word?”

“Yes!” Peridot said, excitedly sticking her arms out, “Maybe we should start small. How about just one field? There hopefully won’t be too many rejects.”

“Sounds like a start. Are there types? Which should we do?” Lapis asked, peering outside at the field, “There’s something called…whet? Wheat? It was golden and rippling.”

(It had looked like amber waves while she was flying overhead, and even if Earth was strange and foreign and nothing like Homeworld—

Sometimes that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

Peridot stuck out a finger, “There are types! I have also heard of this wheat you speak of, but according to Steven it processing it into something useful is difficult. I think we should try corn first! It seems easy, but apparently it has a great genetic variety. I found this entire database of information on the genetic diversity of maize. It can be all sorts of colors, even on the same cob! It should be an interesting experiment.”

(It seemed like a good idea. She had also seen a lot of corn fields while flying with Steven, stalks of green just waving in the wind, and it had been everywhere, so it couldn’t be too hard, right?

Also, Amethyst had introduced her and Peridot to the Earth snack of popped corn, and it would be great to have a supply of that on hand. There were bound to be rejects after all.)

“So how do we start?”

“I’m glad you asked!” Peridot beamed, brandishing her tablet, “According to Camp Pining Hearts, humans get Earth plants to grow by using things called ‘seeds.’”

Lapis slowly nodded. In episode 104 of Camp Pining Hearts, Percy and Paulette had gathered seeds to make some sort of plot, and she and Peridot had groaned and thrown the popped corn at the screen, which was something Peridot assured her was a custom humans did to show their displeasure.

“And where do we get the seeds?”

“From the popped corn!” Peridot replied, reaching into her pocket and taking out some of the yellow kernels that had not popped into the delicious snack

“So we just need to bury them in the dirt like Percy and Paulette did?” she asked, looking around at the fields of grass surrounding the barn.

They certainly didn’t lack for space.

(That was one of the hardest things to both remember and adjust to.

She wasn’t trapped anymore; she was free to fly where she wished, whenever she wanted to, but—

Even before the years beyond years trapped in that blasted mirror, and the interminable time trying to hold Malachite down, Homeworld had always been crowded, and flight had been heavily regulated.

The present Homeworld was nothing like what she remembered from all those eons ago, but the space if anything had grown tighter, and Peridot at least also seemed astounded by the sheer expanse of empty space Earth had open to them.)

Peridot nodded excitedly, “Yes! I have already created a plan applying my kindergartener skills to good use that will hopefully produce a great percentage of viable ‘vegetables’ in no time. I will use my amazing ferrokinensis to move this tractor that I have fixed to plow the fields, and then sow the seeds, and then you can use your awesome hydrokinesis to water everything! We will have a better garden than that pathetic thing Paulette created in no time at all!”

“That sounds like a doable plan,” Lapis replied, standing up and brushing the dirt off of her skirt, “Maybe if it goes well, and there’s a lot of corn running around, we should also try those weird orange round things all the humans had out on the porch the other month?”

“Excellent suggestion! The humans have so many of them lying around that they can’t possibly miss the one or two we’ll need to extract the seeds!” Peridot said, waving her arms around excitedly, “Steven called them—pumpnins? Purkins?”

Lapis shrugged, “Something like that. They would look fun rolling around. Let’s get to it then.”

“Yes! Onward!” Peridot cheered as she marched out of the barn.

The work is—pleasant, surprisingly. She thought it would be like terraforming, just in reverse, but instead—

It’s still hard work, moving the water and making sure the water doesn’t completely swamp and drown the seeds they sowed, but for some reason, it feels better than just pulling all the water away from a planet as she had done in the past.

It may be the sprouts of green that pop out after a few days.

(They created that.

True, it’s small, barely there, and not conscious yet as far as she knows, but it’s the fruit of their labors.)

They start planting pumpkins next, and Peridot suggests using the rubber tubes in the barn to have a more efficient irrigation system (odd that water is so valuable on this planet when before she used to be no more than a glorified trash collector), and so the two of them drag them out, poke holes in them, and she lets the water flow through, and it seems to be working well enough.

Peridot decides they need more color, so they bring in some red plants, called strawmerries and tomats or something like that, and they also sprout within a few days. The corn has also grown tall, and fills the empty space, and she spends every day with Peridot, listening to her enthusiastically chatter about farming techniques vs. kindergarten techniques and spin fantasies of what the vegetables will be like.

(It’s very different from before.

Obviously it was a far cry from the ship where Peridot had just been another cog in the Homeworld machine, just another interrogator wringing her for information, just another jailer keeping her imprisoned, but it was also different than the tentative peace they had found.

Peridot tended to prattle away in the barn as well, but that was more her expounding on the obvious benefits of Percy getting together with Pierre instead of the insipid pairing of Percy and Paulette and excitedly telling her about all the feelings that her new meep-morps produced.

This was something that the two of them were doing together.

Odd that here she was, creating something new with another Homeworld gem, and it was this gem of all gems.

A peridot of all things.

Lapis lazulies and peridots didn’t have much interaction on Homeworld, beyond peridots rearranging the tech around them and giving orders of where the water should go.

And interrogations of course.

When she had first seen Peridot again after that wonderful flight with Steven giving her a brief tour of Earth, it had felt like the edges of the mirror closing in around her again.

How dare this technician just blithely walk in and cheerfully greet her as though she had never sat directly across from her, glaring, threatening, and constantly questioning with that same voice?

How dare she be friends with Steven and suddenly think she can be friends with her as well?

She would not have it, and she crushed any of the green gem’s peace offerings underfoot, and told her to get out.

Surprisingly, Peridot had obeyed.

That, along with Steven’s steadfast trust, above anything was probably what convinced her that the Peridot who stood in front of her now was not the Peridot who had put her in chains on the ship back to Earth.

She would give her a chance, but trust would have to be earned.

And most surprisingly, slowly it has been.

She had thought it impossible, but throughout the days of Peridot cheerfully clanging together things to make “music,” sharing the tapes of Camp Pining Hearts with her, excitedly exploring her newfound powers by redecorating the barn, and admitting that she was not the only one who found life on Earth hard to adjust to—

Slowly it seems, she had made another friend.)

She kept watching the fields of corn, the vines of the tomatoes, the budding strawberries, wondering if they would suddenly spring forth with something as terrible as Malachite, but all they did was peacefully continue to grow.

“They look pretty great, don’t they?” Peridot asks, plopping down next to her.

“Yes, hopefully some of them will be up and running by Steven’s visit,” she replies, carefully adjusting the pressure on the hoses to not drown the corn.

“Should be the corn first since they’ve had the longest to grow,” Peridot says, tapping on her tablet device, “But the pumpkins look pretty orange as well.”

“You don’t think—you’re sure they’ll come out alright, right?” she asks, rubbing her arm slightly.

“Well, this is a first attempt of course, but given that my success rate as an expert kindergartner was close to 90%—the highest in my kindergarten by the way—I don’t anticipate too many duds, do you?” Peridot asks, propping her head up on her hands.

Lapis shakes her head, “I don’t mean duds, I mean—you’ve never gotten some kind of—monster in a kindergarten before, have you?”

“Of course not! I am certified you know,” Peridot replies, drawing herself up, “And I know that’s terrible and whatever to the Crystal Gems—”

“I’m not doubting your expertise,” Lapis says, holding up a hand, “I am just—I have never created anything, you know. Lapises don’t. The only thing I made was—”

(Malachite, terrible and strong, all swirling anger and rage, a nightmare of fury and vengeance.

That came from her as well as Jasper.)

“It’s not going to be like that,” Peridot says firmly, placing a hand on Lapis’ knee, “I guarantee it! You’re brilliant, and I’m also brilliant, and we made something brilliant. Look at all of this!” she gestured around, “This used to be nothing! And we made something that looks like one of those Earth ‘farms’ we looked up in just a few days! Steven will love it!”

 Lapis draws a deep breath and nods, “Steven will love it,” she repeats, looking out over their swaying garden.

(Maybe, even though she doesn’t deserve it, she has found a place here where she can find some semblance of peace.

Even if this planet has far too many organic things, its rules are strange, and it is nothing like the home she remembers—

Some things are better.

Some gems make things better.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave kudos/reviews!


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